Dividing Hive Question

[SandyC]

Is it possible to just divide the two boxes of brood to create a new hive? What would happen if I took one of my two brood boxes and put it in another location with a new empty brood box on it. Would the old hive with the queen, just go on, business as usual and would the hive without the queen, stay in the new hive and raise a new queen?

[drobbins]

Sandy,

I'm a rookie too so don't take my advice to seriously
but I believe what you mentioned is refered to as a "walk away split"
and yes, it's a perfectly viable option
( you have to make sure the queenless box has some fresh egg's, so they have the resources to raise a queen)
the issue is, you reduce the population of the parent hive and it's ability to make honey
the saying is
"you can make honey or you can make bee's"
that choice is making bee's at the expense of making honey
I plan to do something like that in the spring
I want more hives, honey's good, but I want more bee's
I do think I'm gonna buy queens for my splits
if they raise their own, it takes em a month
if you purchase queens, you're a month ahead and you get some control over the genetics

Dave

[Robert Hawkins]

Dave, your implication is if you raise your own queens you have no control over the genetics?????

Hawk

[drobbins]

Hawk

don't get me wrong
I'm a rookie
I know little
my implication was that if you let the bee's raise their own queen you have no control of genetics
illuminate me

[edit]
let me expand a bit
I have 1 hive
if you had several hives ( which I will next year) you could select which to split and have some control
I'm not in that boat yet

Dave

[ December 11, 2005, 06:42 PM: Message edited by: drobbins ]

[SandyC]

I was thinking of doing this because I wonder if I may get too many bees by not doing it. My friend who got a nuc at the same time as I did last year, had her hive swarm in the late summer.

[drobbins]

my understanding of beekeeping is that the whole goal is to prevent the bee's from swarming
swarming is their natural tendency, it's how they produce new hives
if you prevent swarming, they produce an un-naturaly
big hive which produces an excess of honey which you can steal smile.gif
a good thing
the instict to swarm is triggered by getting crowded
you prevent this by inserting some empty frames in the brood nest in early spring so they aren't "crowded"
an alternative is to do a split like you mentioned
but then you don't get that un-naturally big hive, you get free bee's
there is a technique to get both but it's a bit more complex

Dave

[Michael Bush]

If you want to prevent swarming, you can do that without doing splits, if you head it off in time. If you put empty frames in the brood nest as soon as they start to clog it up with honey and pollen you can head it off. Also you can put frames of brood (that you removed to put the empty ones in) up one box and expand the brood nest even more.

If you want more hives, you can also do splits.

If you want more hives AND more honey you need to do a well timed cut down split. In other words, if you do the right kind of split at the right time you can get more honey and more bees. If you do a split any other time, you'll get more hives (and eventually more bees) but less honey.

I think as long as we keep buying Southern queens for Northern climates we'll get queens that are not well adapted to our climate. I think I have much more control over my genetics by raising my own.

[Ben Brewcat]

MB, what goes into a well-timed split? And what's the "cut-down" part of it?

[Joel]

Sandy, we do about 150-200 splits every spring and have great success with the following steps. We've tried several other methods with less results.

1) Drive a marker (stick or stake) in the ground to mark the orginal location of the parent hive entrance.

2) Place your nuc boxes in a circle equal distance from the marker and from each other. (we do 4 or 5 splits from 1 strong hive)

3) Remove the parent hive at least 2 feet from the marked location and locate the queen on a frame setting her aside.

4) Divide capped/open brood, stores and a sheet or 2 of new foundation equally between your nucs.

5) Place your old queen in one of the nucs and add well bred queens to the others.

6) Watch the returning field bees. They will be trying to re-orient to a nuc and should be somewhat equally distrubting themselves if the distance is right. Adjust distances and watch incoming bees until some are flying to all nucs giving you an equally divided field force.

7) Give the new queen/queens at least a week to be accepted and then move them away for a day and then back to the new permenant location to reorient. Once the nuc is strong place it in a hive body with frames of foundation of drawn comb and off you go.

Raising and judging your own queens with little experiance is a poor plan IMO. The let them raise there own routine often ends with lessor quality, inbred emergency queens and always sets the nuc back due to the 25 or so days it will take to raise a queen, mate her and have start laying.

This method we've found gives us well balanced nucs and has been very successful for many years. Generally in our area if you makes nucs you accept you will not get honey the 1st. year.

[Brent Bean]

On the subject of Swarming, there is a good book titled “Swarming It’s control & Prevention” by L. E. Snelgrove I got my copy from www.BetterBee.com (http://www.BetterBee.com) I have used some of his methods with great success.

[Michael Bush]

>MB, what goes into a well-timed split? And what's the "cut-down" part of it?

Well timed, here in my location, would be the last day of May. Two weeks before the start of the main flow.

The "cut-down" part is that you leave only one brood box (thus the name) and you put most or all of the open brood in the split to free up foragers. The old hive is crowded up into the supers with a large field force and only one brood chamber and the split has just nurse bees and brood because all the field bees drift back to the original hive. Some people put the queen in the split and let the old hive raise a new queen (leave at least a little eggs and open brood), and some leave the queen in the old hive and let the split rear a new queen, and some buy queens and put new younger queens in the old hive and the old queen in the split.

[AndrewSchwab]

Sandyc yes your idea of taking the top box off would work. But like mentioned it would be better to buy a queen for them. Make sure you have brood in all stages in both boxs. It wouldn't hurt to replace the old queen at this same time you take the box off.

Swarming one must explain "crowded" bees have no problem walking over the top of each other. "Crowded" in a hive is when there is no more room for honey/or brood. This is an issue in the spring of year when bees build up fast.(Usually better time of year to make splits).Not limited to.

Also when you make your splits it helps to feed them up so they can draw out new foundation and build up faster so you can still get a honey crop.

blah blah i think I have gone to far, hope this helps in a more simple way

[Michael Bush]

The concepts of splits are:

You have to make sure that both of the resulting colonies have a queen or the resources to make one (eggs or larvae that just hatched from the egg, drones flying, pollen and honey, plenty of nurse bees).

You have to make sure that both of the resulting colonies get an adequate supply of honey and pollen to feed the brood and themselves.

You have to make sure that you account for drift back to the original site and insure that both resulting colonies have enough population of bees to care for the brood and the hive they have.

The old adage is that you can try to raise more bees or more honey. If you want both, then you can try to maximize honey in the old location and bees in the new split. Otherwise most splits are either a small nuc made up from just enough to get it started, or an even split.

An even split. You take half of everything and divide it up. Face both of new hives at the sides of the old hive so the returning bees aren't sure which one to come back to. In a week or so, swap places to equalize the drift to the one with the queen.

A walk away split. You take a frame of eggs, two frames of emerging brood and two frames of pollen and honey and put them in a 5 frame nuc, shake in some extra nurse bees (making sure you don’t get the queen), put the lid on and walk away. Come back in four weeks and see if the queen is laying.

A typical split. Same as above, but you either introduce a queen you bought or you come back in four days and destroy any queen cells that are capped. These were started from larvae that are too old. Now walk away and let them raise their new queen. If you introduce a queen they will be four weeks ahead of the hive that is raising their own, so you will have to put them in a larger box than a nuc to start with.

A cut down split. This is very timing critical. It should be done shortly before the main honey flow. The purpose is to maximize the foraging population while minimizing swarming and crowding the bees into the supers.. There are variations on this, but basically the idea is to put almost all the open brood, honey and pollen and the queen in a new hive while leaving all the capped brood, some of the honey and a frame of eggs with the old hive with less brood boxes and more supers. The new hive won't swarm because it doesn't have a workforce (which all returns to the old hive). The old hive won't swarm because it doesn't have a queen or any open brood. It will take at least six weeks or more for them to raise a queen and get a decent brood nest going. Meantime, you still get a lot of production (probably a lot MORE production) from the old hive because they are not busy caring for brood. You get the old hive requeened and you get a split. Another variation is to leave the queen with the old hive and take ALL the open brood out. They won't swarm right away because the open brood is gone.

[SandyC]

OK...how do I find the queen so if I get a new queen after the split, I am sure that I don't have two queens in the same hive????

[AndrewSchwab]

This is a black art. You can find as many different ways, to find a queen, as there are beekeepers.
This is what I do (I am one of those who is real lucky at finding queens or I have some magic eyes that locate only queens) I pull the outside frame(honey) out of the top brood box.
Then take the second frame and start looking, she will more then likely be on combs with fresh eggs and some empty places for her to still lay in. (NOT ALWAYS) Start looking at each frame then slide it over to the side.

You can always ask some beekeeper to help you. Everyone is proud to show how well they can find a queen. smile.gif If you don't find her put everything back try again the next day.

[Todd Zeiner]

Joel- Michael

Just a quick THANK YOU for the post's and easy to learn advise on splits. This topic has really helped with managing splits. I've had praises from another beekeeper on the success of my splits last year. smile.gif

[Michael Bush]

>OK...how do I find the queen so if I get a new queen after the split, I am sure that I don't have two queens in the same hive????

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